


say something (i'm giving up on you)

by peter_parkerson



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Injury, Kidnapping, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Presumed Dead, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, peter and tony think the other is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22854655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peter_parkerson/pseuds/peter_parkerson
Summary: When Tony and Peter are both captured, Tony is forced to make a decision that he believes will change everything, and it results in Tony and Peter both believing the other is dead.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 269





	say something (i'm giving up on you)

**Author's Note:**

> hi my loves!!!!!!!!!!! it's been so fucking long but i'm back!! this fic was originally meant for the irondad zine, but alas, that fell through so! here we are!!

The room is spinning. 

No. The room is not spinning, because there’s no room _to_ spin. He’s not in a room anymore, because he escaped, he _escaped,_ but he really didn’t. He hasn’t escaped the nightmare that is still unfolding around him, because it’s inescapable, it’s undeniable, it’s surrounding him and enveloping him and _suffocating_ him. 

The room is not spinning, but the world is. 

The world is supposed to be spinning, but not like this. The spinning is meant to be imperceptible, not blatant and dizzying and somehow _loud_ , and yet here he is, standing on shaking ground. 

Perhaps the shaking is a metaphor. For what, he hasn’t quite decided yet - his shifted worldview, maybe, or his shattered sense of reality - but regardless, the metaphor is the clearest thing he’s encountered since -

Since...

Since. 

Stop. Stop stop stop it, please don’t do this. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about -

_Him._

The ground shakes.

_I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t want this, I didn’t mean for this to happen, I tried to protect you, I was_ always _trying to protect you, I didn’t protect you, I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you -_

The edges of his vision tinge with red and black and muddled shades of gray. 

_I would have given my life to protect you. And I would give my life to have you back._

Just as he is slipping away, his grip on awareness loosening, fading, releasing, he sees it. In the midst of the spots in his eyes, he sees the light, he sees the propulsors, he sees the outline of a form he’d recognize anywhere.

He sees his savior, once again.

And Tony reaches for him, cries out the name of his best friend, the love of his life, in a voice hoarse both from disuse and from awful, heart-wrenching sobs, and is reached for in return.

* * *

He’s bleeding. 

It’s not really a problem so much as it is a nuisance. The blood’s not dripping so it’s not like he’s leaving a trail, and it barely even hurts, but it _is_ slowly seeping into the piece of his shirt that he tore off and wrapped around his thigh and it’s getting kind of annoying.

It’s not a problem, really, but if he focuses on it enough, he can almost pretend that the problems he _does_ have aren’t real.

Almost. 

Almost almost _almost - what are you going to do without him, you’re just a stupid little boy who’s in over his head, you weren’t even important to him, he didn’t save you, he didn’t save you -_

_You didn’t save him._

He trips, pain suddenly spiking up his leg and somehow finding its way to his skull, catches himself on a tree - he’s in a forest, apparently, because _why not_ \- and just stays there.

Stays, because yes, he’ll have to move eventually - he’ll die if he doesn’t, actually die, and after everything he’s been through, dying is synonymous with giving up - but he can take a minute. Sixty seconds isn’t that long, but maybe it’ll be long enough for him to process...everything. 

Sixty seconds pass.

It’s not long enough. 

He should go back. He wants, despite the blatant counterintuitiveness, nothing more than to go back, to check for himself, to make sure he’s not giving up on something that actually could be fixed. On someone who is waiting for him to figure out how to fix it.

But he can’t. He can’t go back, because going back means risking his life, and he can’t die now. It would make everything that’s happened, everything that’s been done for him, horribly futile, and he can’t do that to - 

To…

To him.

He can’t play with fire, not now, and so, with tears in his eyes, he forces himself to stand upright, counts another thirteen, fourteen, fifteen seconds, and then goes. 

Off on his own, in a world that no longer feels like it wants him in it.

* * *

  
  


He punches a medic in the face when he tries to put in an IV and Tony is simultaneously horrified and too out of it to even care. 

Instinct is a funny thing. Reflexes are just that - _reflexive_ , involuntary, automatic - and Tony’s _fight or flight_ instinct has always been skewed toward _fight,_ so as horrified as he is, he's not exactly surprised. 

He hears himself say - something. What he’ll hope, later on, was an apology. Feels Rhodey, who’s the only part of this that’s real and grounding and _good,_ take the hand that, if not for the numbness that’s taken over his whole body, would surely be throbbing with pain, and cradle it ever so gently in his own. 

He is aware of three things at this moment. 

One - he is alive. A miracle, in itself.

Two - Rhodey is with him. He is the only person in the room who matters.

Three - Peter Parker is not here.

Tony clutches at Rhodey’s hand, _tight_ , and only then does he register even the tiniest ache in his knuckles. His other hand comes up to grasp at the collar of Rhodey’s shirt.

“Rhodey,” he says roughly, sharply, _desperately_. “Rhodey, we have to go back.”

His best friend’s voice seems far away when he says, “We’re going back, Tony. We’re on our way home right now, okay?”

“No.” Tony’s shaking. He’s aware, just vaguely, of this. “No, no, Rhodey, you don’t understand. We have to go _back_. I - he’s - I need -” 

He can’t get the words out.

Rhodey is looking at him in a way that Tony doesn’t like. Sad. Remorseful. Regretful.

Pitying.

Mournful. 

“Tony…” 

He ignores him. Talks right over whatever Rhodey was going to say because he needs to get this out. He needs someone to know, he needs Rhodey to know so he’ll turn the fucking plane around. 

“Rhodey - Rhodey, the kid.” The words feel like they’re being dragged out of him, from the very bottom of his stomach, by a clawed hand, and his voice is absolutely wretched when he says, “Rhodey, I lost the kid.”

And Rhodey looks at him, the soft sparkle of tears in his eyes, and he cups Tony’s face in his hands, touch as gentle as it’s ever been, and he says softly, “I know. I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”

And Tony shakes and he clings and he falls apart. 

* * *

Peter has to stop walking after about two hours to tear off another piece of his shirt and replace the blood-soaked strip of fabric around his thigh. By then, his leg has mostly stopped bleeding, but the pain remains.

The funny thing is, that pain? It’s nothing in comparison to the pain in his chest. The pain in his head. The pain in his heart.

There’s a hole that’s been left in the world, he thinks. An empty space where a man made of iron, carved from ice but forged in fire, should be. 

None of this is right. It’s all upside-down, twisted around in ways that shouldn’t even be possible. That, even now, still don’t feel possible. And he hates it - with every fiber of his being, he hates whatever cruel, horribly vengeful deity made this happen. Whatever awful turn of fate destroyed any sense of safety or comfort or _reality_ that he’s ever known.

Because he’s here. He’s here and Tony’s not. 

It’s unimaginable, and yet it’s true. 

He’s alone in the middle of the woods, stumbling around on legs that don’t want to work and shaking like a leaf. 

He has to keep going. He has to find...somewhere, something - a town, a gas station, a hiker, _anything._ He needs a phone, he needs to call someone to come get him, because he has no idea where he is and no idea where to go from here.

And so he walks and he walks and he walks, and all the while - tearlessly, uselessly - he grieves.

* * *

Rhodey tells him, after he’s shaken and clung and fallen apart, that he scanned for heat signatures before they left. That he scanned for _his_ heat signature. 

That FRIDAY found nothing. 

He screams, cries, begs for Rhodey to turn the plane around, for him to find the kid, for him to _fix this_. Instead, they keep flying away, away, away. He feels a prick in his arm, and his eyelids go heavy.

Sometimes, people hit rock bottom. They get there and they stay there until eventually, painstakingly, they find a way to pull themselves back up.

Other times, there’s nowhere to go but down.

And fuck if Tony doesn’t feel like he’s falling.

* * *

Peter’s legs are shaking. His hands are too, but he doesn’t think that’s nearly as important. 

There’s so many goddamn trees. It’s just trees and grass and leaves. Dead leaves and dying trees and a dying seventeen-year-old boy whose head won’t stop screaming about his dead mentor -

Dead. He’s dead, Tony’s dead, and there’s nothing Peter can do except try to save himself.

Which is not going well.  
  


He’d thought his leg wasn’t a problem, and he’s still pretty sure it’s not. But he’s still got sedatives running through his veins, he can feel it, and he thinks they’re preventing his healing factor from kicking in properly.

His leg might not be a problem, but the internal damage surely is. Sixteen days of more or less continuous torture will do that.

A sharp breeze cuts through his clothes, and he shivers so hard that his heartbeat noticeably spikes. It’s not even that cold, but he’s wearing only sweatpants and a thin t-shirt with no shoes or socks and spiders aren’t exactly good at thermoregulating. Plus, the chill air is making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and it reminds him of how it feels when his spider-sense pings, of how it’s pinged almost constantly for the past sixteen days, how it’s still pinging because the cold air feels like the cold metal of the table his kidnappers kept him on and -

Peter’s stomach twists and he vomits into the mix of orange and red and dull, lifeless green on the ground. Nothing really comes up, because he hasn’t eaten in what he thinks is about a day and a half, which is probably also contributing to how lightheaded and woozy he feels. 

And as he rests on hands and knees on the forest floor, bile burning in the back of his throat, he knows with more certainty than he has ever known anything that he is going to die.

* * *

Six hours after arriving at the medbay, Tony wakes up in a hospital bed, not for the first time and certainly not for the last.

Consciousness comes in stages - vague awareness bleeds into hazy confusion, fades to make way for the gut-wrenching realization. 

It wasn’t a dream. 

All of the horrors in his head, the ever-present nightmare that is the life of Anthony Edward Stark, are entirely too real. 

Someone squeezes his hand. It isn’t Peter (it never will be again, because the universe is eternally cruel) but his traitorous mind hears _We’ll kill him if you don’t give us what we want_ and he instinctively tightens his fingers around the hand in his.

_It’s okay, Tony. I’m sorry. I love you._

It’s his fault. Peter’s dead because of him and his godforsaken company. Peter’s dead because he refused to cave, because he put the cruel, selfish, _worthless_ world above the kid - _his_ kid.

His kid is dead. 

His kid died for a world that never deserved him in the first place, and Tony can’t bring him back but he’ll be damned if he lets Peter die for nothing.

He’ll find the bastards who took his kid away from him, who stole the light from the universe, and he’ll make them wish they’d never even heard the name _Tony Stark._

As soon as Rhodey lets him off of bedrest. 

Rhodey hasn’t left his side since - _since_ , and Tony knows it’s because he’s trying to keep an eye on him. To make sure he doesn’t tear the IV out of his arm, get in a suit, and fly right back to the damned forest he’d just been rescued from. 

Because he would. He would and Rhodey knows it because he knows Tony much too well. Better, probably, than Tony knows himself.

Except no, maybe he wouldn’t. Not now, not yet. 

He needs his strength for this mission. Peter would be pissed if Tony got himself killed now.

So he’ll wait. He’ll lay in this stupid hospital bed and he’ll leave his IV alone and he’ll let Helen and Rhodey and Pepper and Bruce and Happy fret over him and he’ll make a plan. 

He’ll get justice for his kid.

It’s the least he can do. 

* * *

Peter wonders what will kill him first - dehydration, blood loss, or the hallucinations.

He knows they’re hallucinations. Somehow, he’s lucid enough that he knows the versions of Tony he keeps seeing can’t be real, but he’s certainly not lucid enough to stop seeing them.

Earlier on, he passed one with blood dripping from a gunshot wound in his head, who begged and pleaded for Peter to stop and help him. Half-conscious and desperate, Peter did stop. 

Wasted a good fifteen minutes trying to figure out why Tony wasn’t already dead and how he could keep it that way before he realized.

He hasn’t stopped since. Can’t. 

Death is following him and Death will catch him if he stops. 

Stopping is not an option, but dying is starting to sound quite appealing.

* * *

  
  


Nineteen hours after arriving at the medbay, Rhodey sits beside his hospital bed and asks, “Tony, sweetheart, do you want me to call May?”  
  


Tony’s fists clench so hard that he feels the tension shoot up his forearms, tendons screaming at the sudden jolt. 

“ _No_ ,” he says, sharply, without even thinking. As soon as it comes out of his mouth, he knows it’s the right answer. 

Rhodey doesn’t press. Just nods and takes his hand, gently uncurling Tony’s fingers so that he can slide them between his own. 

He has to tell May himself. It’s what Peter would want.

But he has to have some sort of consolation to give her first. 

* * *

  
  


He wonders how long it’s been since he escaped. He started when it was dark, and it’s been light for hours now. Sixteen hours in total, maybe? Eighteen? 

However many hours it is, he knows it’s too long.

Peter hopes someone will tell May how hard he fought.

* * *

Twenty-six hours after arriving at the medbay, Helen finally removes his IV.

Twenty-six hours and forty-one minutes after arriving at the medbay, Tony finds himself with an unopened bottle of whisky in one hand and a framed picture of himself and Peter Parker in the other.

Peter’s grinning at the camera, bright and excited, holding a first-place ribbon for his science fair. Tony is not even looking at the camera, his impossibly fond gaze settled entirely on Peter and one arm slung around the kid’s shoulders. 

He was...almost three months sober at the time? 

He can’t fuck that up now. He’s been sober for over eight months (the kid convinced him to quit, because the kid is incredible and Tony is physically incapable of doing anything that makes him upset in any way, shape, or form), and it would be a slight to Peter if he fucked that up now. 

Being drunk, or in the midst of withdrawal, on the mission would make it that much harder, anyway. 

So that’s where Rhodey finds him, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his lab with an unopened bottle of whisky next to him and a framed picture of himself and Peter Parker in both of his hands.

* * *

The trees are thinning. 

He thinks they are, at least. He could still be delusional.

But no - they’re definitely thinning. His vision might be blurry and he may have passed what he’s pretty sure is the thirty-fourth Tony hallucination so far, but the trees are definitely thinning. 

Brilliant. Now all he needs is -

A town. 

A _town._

“Holy shit,” Peter whispers. “Holy _shit.”_ _  
_

He doesn’t run, as much as he wants to, because he’s horribly lightheaded and if he moves any faster than his current pace, he’ll fall over and that’ll be it. 

And so he walks - limps, really - agonizingly slow, the town creeping closer and closer all the while. His vision goes starry every sixth step or so, but he treks onward.

And onward.

And onward.

Until, queasy and dizzy beyond belief, Peter stumbles past the first house in the town, an oddly shaped wooden thing, and is almost immediately greeted by, “Jesus Christ, are you okay, kid?”

_No,_ he thinks. _No, I’m not okay. I’ll never be okay again._

“Can I use your phone?” he asks.

* * *

He’ll go tomorrow, he thinks.

It’s been thirty-two hours since he arrived at the medbay, according to Rhodey, who’s hovering possibly even more since he found Tony in the lab. It’s a little annoying, but it’s also...grounding. Being alone for too long just makes him think about Peter - think _more_ about Peter, that is, because he never stops thinking about Peter - and Rhodey’s mother-henning at least means he’s not alone. 

It makes planning harder, but that’s okay. 

He’ll go tomorrow. Helen says he’s cleared to get off bedrest by then, though it may take days, weeks, months, even, to gain back the weight he lost from eating only one relatively small meal per day for sixteen days straight. Thankfully, he doesn’t need to be a “healthy body weight” to take down a terrorist group. Wouldn’t be the first time, anyway.

So he’ll go tomorrow. And then he’ll call May Parker and inform her that the world may as well have stopped turning.

* * *

His hands shake, violently, as he dials May’s number, so violently that he hits the wrong number and has to backspace a grand total of seven times. 

Eventually, he gets all ten numbers right and the phone rings.

Once.

Twice.

Three times -

“Hello? -” 

“May,” he croaks out, voice hoarse from past screaming and present disuse. “May, I need -”

“Oh my god, _Peter?_ Peter, baby, are you okay? Where the hell are you? What happened, I’ve been worried sick -” 

“ _May,”_ Peter pleads and she goes quiet on the other end. His stomach lurches again, and it takes everything he has left in him not to throw up for the...fourth time? Something like that. He coughs harshly. “Do you have Happy’s number?”

“I - yes, why? What’s going on?” 

He hates to do this, to have their first conversation in weeks be so quick and snappish and impersonal, but he’s this close to blacking out and he really doesn’t have time for pleasantries.

“Call him. Tell him to have FRIDAY triangulate the location of the phone I’m calling you from and send T - Rhodey. To come get me. Please,” Peter says, and then, hating himself all the while, he hangs up.

Somehow, he manages to hand the phone back to the man he borrowed it from before he carefully lowers himself to the ground, landing on his knees first and then just...sprawling out on his back and closing his eyes.

He lays there, trembling, and waits.

* * *

Tony’s just about to ask Rhodey to get him a cup of tea (Helen said he’s not allowed to drink coffee until he’s “recovered”, whatever the hell “recovered” means at this point) so he’ll leave the hospital wing, but then the door _slams_ open and Happy says, “Peter called.”

The world keeps spinning, but it feels four times faster now.

He’s on his feet in seconds, almost nosediving - Rhodey catches him, and it’s uncomfortably reminiscent of their college years - and as soon as he’s steadied himself, he’s scrabbling for Rhodey’s hand and dragging him out of the hospital room.

“Tony, Tony, wait -” Rhodey starts, but he gives up quickly and just lets Tony pull him along.

Happy immediately turns on his heel and heads toward the lab, talking as he goes. “He’s alive and he’s in some town near where they kept you two - FRIDAY’s tracking the number he called his aunt from, he called her and told her to call me and send Rhodey to -”

“I’m going,” Tony interrupts. 

Happy stops, fumbles for a moment, while Rhodey’s grip tightens around Tony’s hand. But neither of them protests, because they know. They both know. 

“We’ll both go, alright? We’ll go get your kid, Tones.”

Tony spins around, catching the hem of Rhodey’s shirt, and yanks him into a searing kiss. Rhodey makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat that quickly turns into a soft hum against Tony’s lips, his free hand twisting into Tony’s hair.

Just as abruptly as he kissed him, Tony jerks away from Rhodey and goes right back to dragging him along. He hears Rhodey huff something like a laugh behind him and grins for the first time in almost eighteen days. 

* * *

  
  
He’s drifting. 

In and out, in and out, in and - 

Consciousness is evasive, elusive, impossible to keep a hold on. It slips and slides through Peter’s fingers, never staying for longer than a few seconds, always dancing just close enough to see but too far away to reach. 

His fingers are numb. His fingers are numb and his thigh has gone from burning insistently to tingling gently.

Maybe he should be concerned about that.

But he’s so tired.

He’s so tired.

He’s so...

* * *

“Oh my god.”

“Jesus, is - is that him?”

“Oh my _god._ Motherfucking hell, that’s him. It’s _him._ ”

“Is that blood?”

“It’s _him_ , Rhodey! He’s _alive._ ” 

“I know, I know, just - Tony, he’s covered in blood.”

“That’s - he’s - fuck, he is. _Fuck._ FRIDAY?”

_“He’s alive, boss. He needs medical attention soon, but at the moment he is in no immediate peril.”_

“Okay, it’s okay, Tones. Your kid’s okay.”

“Call Helen and tell her to ready the medbay, yeah? I have to - I’m gonna go hold my kid.”

“Got it.”

“Great. And - honeybear?”

“Hm?”

“I love you. I love you so fucking much.”

“I know, baby. I love you too.”

* * *

_Is that -_

He’s awake now.

He’s _so very_ awake _,_ now, and alert and alive and _awake_ because that noise in the air sounds a lot like repulsors. 

It’s a struggle to even open his eyes, but he gets there eventually. It doesn’t help, though, because from his position flat on his back, he can’t see anything anyway. He doesn’t want to sit up. He really, _really_ doesn’t want to sit up because it was already practically impossible to even pry his eyes open and he knows trying to push himself up will only end with him in pain again. But he’s about sixty percent sure that that’s the sound of repulsors, and he needs to see it to believe it.

His entire body screams when he pushes up on his hands, but he keeps going. He claws his way up from the darkness that is still trying to drag him down, fighting gravity and exhaustion and pain and the horrible, terrifying urge to just give up to find -

Two suits. 

Two. 

_Two._

* * *

_I love him, I love him so fucking much, he’s here, he’s alive, he’s_ alive, _how is he alive, I can’t believe he’s alive, I love him, god, I love him._

_I need to tell him, he needs to know how much I love him, he’s alive and I love him and I need him to know, I need him, I love him._

_I’m never letting him go again, I’m never letting him out of my sight, I can’t ever go through this again, I can’t, I can’t lose him again, I love him._

* * *

“M’ster St’rk?” 

“Oh my god,” Tony whispers, practically falling out of the suit before it even touches the ground, and then louder, “Oh my god, _Peter._ ”

The kid reaches for him, face stark white, hands shaking violently, eyes pooling with tears. He looks awful, ragged and run-down and _hurt_ , but he’s here, he’s here, he’s _here._

Tony drops to his knees and tugs Peter to him - the kid goes easily, collapsing into Tony’s chest and twisting weak, trembling fingers into Tony’s t-shirt, and Tony holds him, just holds him, and buries his face in Peter’s hair and breathes for what feels like the first time in almost eighteen days. 

“M’ster St’rk,” Peter whimpers, and Tony can feel a growing wet spot on his shirt. “T’ny. T’ny.”

“I’m here, Petey. I’m right here, I swear, I’ve got you.”

“ _T’ny_ ,” Peter whines again, and he pulls back, just enough to see Tony’s face. Tony hates how pale his kid is, hates how his eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks are pallid, hates how his lips are caked with bits of dried blood and his hair is matted with sweat and dirt and blood, but he loves him, god, he loves him. The kid looks at him with more intensity than Tony has ever seen on him and this time when he opens his mouth, his words don’t slur. “Tony. Is this real?” 

His voice is firm and pleading and remarkably lucid, though his eyes are still glassy and dazed, and Tony doesn’t know how he ever got through those thirty-something hours without this kid. 

He doesn’t know what Peter went through, and he doesn’t know if he wants to. “Yeah, Petey. It’s real.”

“Tell me s’mething only you would kn’w. Somethin’ about yourself, somethin’ you hav’nt told me. S’mthin’ weird.”

Tony’s brow furrows automatically, but he complies. “Um - okay, well - when Rhodey told me he was in love with me, I didn’t know what to say, so I just...didn’t say anything. For three weeks. And it wasn’t even like I avoided him - which, honestly, might have been better - I just pretended he’d never said anything.”

Peter stares at him, eyes wide, but doesn’t interject. So Tony continues.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t feel the same. It was because I was just...I was so fucking scared of - of having someone want me, _actually_ want me, and I was scared of messing things up and losing the only person I could always count on. So I ignored it, until - until I couldn’t anymore, and while I definitely don’t recommend this method, the outcome was still solid.”

He hears Rhodey snort from behind them. Peter’s eyes flick over to Rhodey for just a second, then back to Tony.

He stares.

And stares.

And then he must decide that, deluded or not, his brain couldn’t have made that up, because he falls back into Tony then, pressing so far into him that Tony has to quickly shift his knees so that they don’t tumble over, and _sobs._

Tony feels his eyes well up with tears, too, so he holds his kid as tight as he can and for once, he lets himself cry.

“I love you, Peter,” he murmurs, pressing his face into Peter’s hair. “I love you so much.”

Peter’s voice is muffled in Tony’s shirt, but Tony has never heard anything more clearly than he does when Peter says, “Love you too.”

Tony kisses the top of Peter’s head, and he knows, in this moment, that he will never be more grateful for anything than he is for this kid. 

“Alright, Underoos. Let’s get you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> god i missed them
> 
> hit me up on [tumblr](https://peter-parkerson.tumblr.com/)
> 
> support me on [ko-fi!!](https://ko-fi.com/peterparkerson)


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